This may sound strange, but there’s a lot of opportunity at this stage of collapse. Gardening and food security issues might resonate with many more people now than in recent years. If you know someone who is on the verge of snapping out their trance, offer books, links, some seeds, or a hand.

Additionally, I have found that food is a gateway issue to getting people to understand the wider horror industrial complex. There’s no need to go there right away, but once people understand industrialized food production, there’s pretty much no issue that’s off the table.

When you look at the food that people are going to receive in these programs below, there’s going to be virtually no nutrient dense whole foods included. People are going to be eating substances that are going to reduce fertility, cause cardiovascular diseases, cancers and a variety of other problems. It’s a diet of walking malnutrition, keeping people just alive enough to make them susceptible to chronic diseases. Better to kill people slowly on empty calories and genetically engineered poison than have them riot and burn the whole f*cking show down. This is how poor people are dealt with in the Western world. It’s easier to give someone a breakfast stick than it is to fight him, house to house.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

If you know anyone who’s going to go on the dole, try to get them to see the full circle. Turn them on to the Weston A. Price Foundation, farmers markets, good fats, small scale organic gardening and bartering. Individuals might find that the crooked corporations need Obama Clause more than they do.

Fueled by rising unemployment and food prices, the number of Americans on food stamps is poised to exceed 30 million for the first time this month, surpassing the historic high set in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina.

The figures will put the spotlight on hunger when Congress begins deliberations on a new economic stimulus package, said legislators and anti-hunger advocates, predicting that any stimulus bill will include a boost in food stamp benefits. Advocates are also optimistic that President-elect Barack Obama, who made campaign promises to end childhood hunger and whose mother once briefly received food stamps, will make the issue a priority next year.

“We soon will have the most food stamps recipients in the history of our country,” said Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, a D.C.-based anti-hunger policy organization. “If the economic forecasts come true, we’re likely to see the most hunger that we’ve seen since the 1981 recession and maybe since the 1960s, when these programs were established.”

The Agriculture Department is set to release the new numbers as early as this week. Agency officials declined to confirm the figures but outlined them in a briefing last month for advocates and administrators of state food stamp programs. Breaking the symbolically important 30 million mark comes on the heels of government data showing that 11.9 million people went hungry in the United States at some point last year. That included nearly 700,000 children, up more than 50 percent from the year before.

Food pantries and other charitable organizations are also reporting an increase in demand from those in need. Visits to local pantries are up by 20 to 100 percent over the past six months, and calls to the Capital Area Food Bank’s hunger hotline have jumped 248 percent. Most are from people who have never used food stamps or a pantry before, said Lynn Brantley, the organization’s president and chief executive.